Enduring Voices

Oral Histories of the U.S. Army Experience in Afghanistan, 2003-2005

This book represents a new venture for the U.S. Army Center of Military History: an anthology of oral histories. The interviews spotlight the establishment of Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan in October 2003 and the tenure of its first commander, Lt. Gen. David W. Barno (USA, Ret.). In less than two years, General Barno changed the U.S. Army's approach to operations in Afghanistan by developing a program that aimed to rebuild that nation while giving its government the strength it needed to stand on its own. The interviews presented make available for the first time the experiences and opinions of the American soldiers and their joint military service, interagency, and international partners who brought that program into being. In order to show how the ideas and decision making that shaped General Barno's effort evolved and the military and political challenges he and other Army leaders faced, the interviews emphasize the perspectives of senior officers. As a result, the anthology sought to include material that would leave the reader with a sense of depth and complexity of the decisions driving the operations in Afghanistan as well as of the operations themselves.